Friends and Friends of Friends
by Balin Lord of Moria
Summary: The crew of the Ghost plays host to a group of Imperial deserters who suffered under the whip of the Empire. The crew, especially Kanan, Hera, and Ezra hope to make Rebels out of the deserters. Some of them are eager, while others are not so certain. Deserters are characters from the EU novel *Death Star.* AU.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This story involves some of the characters from the Rebellion Era EU novel, _"Death Star,"_ which included eight EU good guys who tried to escape the Death Star at the Battle of Yavin, five of whom succeeded, and went on to join the Rebel Alliance. Their part in this story is very AU from the novel, though, because this is an original story, and they're not going to make any mention of escaping the Death Star in this story.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Star Wars Rebels_. Dave Filoni and Disney own it.

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><p>The <em>Ghost<em> and its crew were flying through the Outer Rim, busy putting a few hundred light years between themselves and the star system of Glee Anselm. They had been spending some time on that planet providing food and supplies to the native Nautolans and Anselmi of the planet, who were in dire need of help after the Empire had laid waste to one of their biggest cities, badly damaging the planet's economy, and had also taken over the remaining supplies for the benefit of the Emperor.

Zeb Orrelios sat in his quarters, trying to get some sleep in spite of the noisy antics of Chopper, who was checking the ship's systems in his usual cantankerous mood. Sabine Wren spent some time drawing some new art in her own cabin, Kanan Jarrus and Hera Syndulla sat in the back of the ship with the dejarik board, discussing the Empire, the state of the galaxy, and matters arising from it, and Ezra Bridger, who shared Zeb's quarters, took to his bed, practicing some simple tricks with the Force. Since he was Force-sensitive, he reasoned that he'd better start getting the hang of using the mystical energy field.

He noticed a block of metal on the floor that wasn't nailed down to anything. He decided to try that one out. "After all," he thought, "That doesn't look too heavy. It should be easy for me to lift up and move." His hand reached towards it, and he concentrated on the Force.

It started to rise, just a little, from the floor. He was glad to see that happen. But then, as he tried to move it to the other end of the cabin, it wobbled in midair and fell back to the floor with a light clang.

"Blast," said Ezra. "Oh well, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again, Ezra."

"Hey! Try and keep it down a little, kid!" said Zeb, "I'm trying to sleep here."

"Oops, sorry, Zeb," said Ezra, "I'll be more quiet next time."

He got no further, though, because there was suddenly an alarm coming from the bridge, presumably set off by Chopper or Hera. He hit his head on the ceiling as he sat up. Zeb hit his own head on Ezra's bunk.

"What was that?' Ezra said.

"It's the alarm, what else, kid?" said Zeb.

"I _guessed_ it was the alarm, Zeb," said Ezra, "I mean, what's up?"

"Dunno," said Zeb, "What do you say we check it out?"

"Yeah, let's do that," said Ezra.

They leaped out of bed, Ezra almost jumping on Zeb's head and shoulders, annoying Zeb a little, and ran to the bridge. The others were already there.

"Hey, what's going on?" Ezra inquired.

"Yeah!" said Zeb, "I hope we're not missing anything fun!"

"I don't know if I would call this 'fun,' Zeb," said Hera, "An Imperial ship is flying right in our vicinity, and it looks like they want to either board us, or capture us."

"Then why aren't we fighting or fleeing?" asked Ezra.

"Because it isn't a TIE fighter, or a Star Destroyer, or any other Imperial warship, from the looks of it," said Kanan. "In fact, it looks like a…medical shuttle."

"What would an Imperial medical shuttle be doing out here in the middle of nowhere?" wondered Sabine out loud.

"And why are they flying so close to us?" said Zeb. "Is this some kind of trick, or what?"

Chopper pinched him with one of his appendages and squawked.

"_What did he say?"_ Zeb demanded.

"He says that a medical shuttle would only be this far out without a larger Imperial ship if the crew, or the patients, were in some kind of danger," said Kanan. "I can sense several people onboard, and curiously, none of them are weak-minded. In fact, they seem to be a little afraid of us, like they don't have any weapons to defend themselves with."

"Imperial medical shuttles usually aren't armed. I'll try to contact them," said Hera, turning on the comlink. "Unidentified medical shuttle, identify yourself, please. We are willing to help you if your patients are in any danger."

"Wha-" said Ezra in surprise. Sabine cut him off.

"It's only the right thing to do to offer medical assistance, even if it is Imperial," whispered Sabine, "If they're dangerous, I'm sure we can handle them."

A hesitant, young male voice called back from the shuttle. "Uh, I'm surprised you contacted us first. I was about to contact you. This is Villian Dance, pilot of the Imperial Navy, or rather, former Imperial pilot. I have four people with me. We narrowly escaped an Imperial Super Star Destroyer with our lives. Who are you people? Can we trust you?"

Kanan considered for a second, and then took over the comm. "This is a risky question to ask, but is there anyone onboard that ship who's sympathetic to the Jedi?"

A slightly older male voice said, "I am, at least, to a certain extent. I knew a Jedi who was the most wonderful person I've ever met, but she's gone now. My name's Dr. Kornell Divini."

"A doctor, eh?" said Zeb. "We could use one of them, I bet."

Hera spoke to the shuttle, "Tell you what. For the moment, we'll trust you people. Dock on the right side of this ship, and we'll let you in. But we're warning you, if this is a trick, we are armed and dangerous, and are ready to defend ourselves. So if you have any hidden weapons, be sure to show them to us immediately after you enter my ship."

"I assure you," said Divini, "We don't have any weapons. We couldn't take any with us, and we lost three of our number in our escape attempt. Two of them died fighting off stormtroopers."

"So you say," said Hera, "Very well. We'll let you in."

The small shuttle docked alongside the _Ghost_, and a tube was extended from the _Ghost_ to the shuttle. The passengers walked across one by one, until they were all in the Rebels' ship.

* * *

><p>The Rebels sized up the newcomers. Two of them were human males. One looked like he was approaching middle age, and the other was about a decade younger. They were the men who had introduced themselves as Kornell Divini and Villian Dance, respectively. There was also a Twi'lek female, a Mirialan female, and a Zelosian male. Ezra's eyes lingered longest on the Zelosian and the Mirialan, because he had never heard of the plant-based Zelosian humanoids, with their bright green eyes and all, and the young Mirialan lady was almost as attractive as Sabine was in his opinion.<p>

Villian apparently noticed this and said to Ezra, "Keep your hands off her. She's mine."

"I said I'd think about it, Vil," the Mirialan responded. "But don't worry, I still like your style better than anyone else's."

"I guess introductions are in order," said Kanan, "My name is Kanan Jarrus, and this is our pilot and mechanic, Hera Syndulla. The Lasat is Garazeb Orrelios, or Zeb, the boy is Ezra Bridger, and the girl in Mando gear is Sabine Wren."

Chopper butted Kanan from behind and beeped.

"Oh yes, sorry, Chopper," Kanan said, "And this is our mech droid, C1-10P, or Chopper, as we call him."

The newcomers introduced themselves in return. Villian liked to be called "Vil," and Kornell said that his friends called him "Uli," a Tusken word that meant, "kid."

"You're from Tatooine, huh," said Ezra, "You must have seen some great adventures with the Sand People if you have a nickname like that."

"Yes, that's true," said Uli, grinning for a second. "Actually, how I got the nickname is kind of an interesting story-"

"Uh, thanks Uli," said the Twi'lek lady politely, "But I'm hoping to make up some of the days of my life I'll never get back. I'm bartender Memah Roothes."

"I'd like to get back a lot more of my life that I've lost than you know, Memah," said Uli, the grin being replaced with a serious look.

"Yes, we know that, Dr. Divini," said Memah, "But I don't think this is a good time to talk about that. We still aren't finished introducing ourselves."

"No, we aren't," said the Mirialan, "I'm Teela Kaarz. I was a political prisoner of the Empire, and served for a while as an architect."

"And my name is Celot Ratua Dil," said the Zelosian.

"How did you end up a political prisoner, if I may ask?" asked Sabine.

Teela looked a little miffed. "It's a long story," she said. "Let's just say I backed up the wrong politician in a voting campaign on Mirial, along with a lot of other Mirialans, and I almost paid the price for my _so-called 'treason.'"_

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Sabine, "That's different from my reason for being a Rebel. My whole family was destroyed by the Empire."

"Who said I was what you call, 'a Rebel?'" asked Teela. "We only just escaped from the Empire. We don't have any special plans yet."

"Well, perhaps we can get a little acquainted with each other, before we decide what to do with you," suggested Hera. "If you hate the Empire, and Imperial service, enough to want to escape it, then we have something in common."

The five escapees looked at each other. It was Vil who spoke for them. "I think that would be all right," he said, "It isn't very likely we're going to come up with a better opportunity to find someone who's willing to listen to us without returning us to the Empire. Okay, we'll stay for now and see how your half lives."

"But might I suggest that we get rid of our medical shuttle that brought us here?" said Ratua. "I don't like the idea of the Imperials tracing us back to the shuttle, because that would make it easier for them to find us."

"Sounds like a good idea to me," said Kanan, "Chopper, Hera, jettison the shuttle. When we're finished with these people, maybe we can drop them off on a neutral world somewhere, where they can take care of themselves, unless they would rather stay with us, of course."

"Right now, I'm curious to know what one of you guys knows about the Jedi that the Empire wiped out long ago!" said Ezra eagerly.

"That would be me," said Uli, "Although it still brings back painful memories."

"We don't have to rush into it, Uli," said Sabine. "You can say it when you're ready."

And after Hera and Chopper had jettisoned the medical shuttle into open space, they settled down in the dejarik room to discuss what had happened to all of them.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** I seriously doubt that the _Ghost_ had a tube on its side to dock with other ships, or at least it didn't have one like the one that I imagined. But I had to include it in order for that part of this chapter to make a little more sense.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** There's a little bit of melodrama in this chapter, but I tried not to overdo it, or make any of the characters, canon or non-canon, overact, or act OOC. Just so you know.

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><p>"So then," said Hera, "What's your story? What was it like, working for the Imperials?"<p>

Vil was the first to speak. "I was once a TIE fighter pilot, and I was damn good at it. I could outfly most of my squadmates easily, and I could even perceive a little bit of individuality among the TIE's that survived each battle, meaning that I had a favorite TIE for a while. I was looking forward to a promotion up the ladder."

"But then, I was forced to do a few things that made me doubt the nobility of the Empire. When a shuttle full of prisoners escaped from an Imperial prison planet, I was required to go and eliminate it. I tried to make them surrender at first, but they wouldn't listen. So I had to destroy it. And for several nights afterward, I had frequent nightmares about what I'd done. Another incident was when Kendo, a guy who had recently joined my squadron, refused my orders to pull up during a training run on several target drones. He died clumsily, and well, I wanted to do more for his family than just send them my condolences over the HoloNet, but I never got the opportunity. And in one battle, we had to destroy some starfighters that were trying to do damage to the Super Star Destroyer. The fight was too easy; it felt more like a slaughter than a battle. When I fight, I prefer it to be a challenge, not a coward's massacre."

"But the worst bit of news is when I heard rumors of some kind of big project the Empire is going to reveal to the galaxy soon. Apparently, they're building some kind of ultimate battle station of some sort, and it's going to be the ultimate weapon against the galaxy. It has some sort of superweapon that can destroy very large targets, or so I've heard. I began to question what kind of government enforces the slaughter of anyone they want to destroy, just to make a point. I don't know where this weapon is, or what it's called, unfortunately."

"The Empire is nothing to enjoy being a part of," said Teela. "I had supported a political candidate on Mirial who was deemed a traitor by the Emperor, and for that, I was rounded up, arrested, and taken to the prison planet Despayre for hard labor. I stayed there for about a year, surviving largely due to the woodcraft my father taught me when I was a girl. Then I was taken to do more hard work on the same Super Star Destroyer that Vil worked on. We met in a cantina onboard the ship called, 'The Hard Heart Cantina,' which was run by Memah here, and I grew to sympathize with Vil's stance on the immorality of the Empire, especially after a rumored destruction of the planet Despayre. I was deathly afraid that battle station Vil had mentioned just now had something to do with it, and it didn't bear thinking about that I was, apparently, almost destroyed with a planet."

"Yes," said Memah, "I was running a cantina on that Star Destroyer called 'The Hard Heart.' I used to run one on the underlevels of Coruscant called 'The Soft Heart,' but it was burned down under mysterious circumstances. I accepted a job aboard the Super Star Destroyer to run my new cantina. I hard a Ragithian bouncer named Rodo, a very big man with very hard-hitting fists, who died helping us escape that Destroyer along with an Imperial Marines sergeant named Nova Stihl. The idea of a space station, or anything else, destroying planets full of innocents, and the fact that the Imperials evidently see nothing wrong with it, but rather take pride in it, sickened me, so we formulated a plan to escape, with the help of the third man who died to help us escape, a librarian named Atour Riten, and now, here we are."

"And my life is a rather shady one, if that's the right word," said Ratua, "I was a smuggler, and it was a pleasure to go around and live a thief's paradise in the galaxy, but my parents are wealthy and own some properties on Coruscant. I'm hoping to see them again soon, especially with Memah's companionship."

"And I still say that I'm going to kill you for not telling me about that sooner," said Memah.

"Guilty as charged, my lady," he said. "No one said I have to come all tidy and clean. But at least I'm not a violent man."

Chopper laughed rudely.

"Shut up, Chopper!" said Zeb, giving him a light kick. Chopper butted into his foot.

Sabine and Ezra looked at them all with fascination. "Wow," said Ezra, "You really did have it hard."

"We did," said Teela, "It isn't easy, living life during the rise of an Empire that's all evil, especially if you've lived during the years before it was first created, too. You know, the years when there was still peace and justice in the galaxy."

Kanan looked at Uli. "Uli?" he asked, "You still haven't said anything. What about you? We can't help you if you don't talk to us at all."

Uli came back to the present. Until then, he seemed to be lost in another world. "Well, I'm a surgeon. More specifically, a _battle surgeon_. Thanks to the Empire's Imperial Military Stop Loss Order, or IMSLO, I've been stuck in the military ever since before the end of the Clone Wars, patching up injured Imperial bodies nonstop. And I lot of the time, I had to do very routine work like physicals, when my hands are made for cutting and patching. And it angers me that war is still happening in the galaxy. War is the stupidest thing anyone can undergo."

Kanan watched him with sympathy, but his main question still hadn't been answered. "What about the Jedi you once knew? Who was he, or she? They may be someone I knew, because I was once a Jedi."

Uli looked at him sharply when he heard that, but he didn't say why. He just said, sounding like he was trying to hold back tears of melancholy, "Barriss Offee. A Jedi Healer who was a Padawan when I knew her. Later, she became a Jedi Knight. We had the most insightful conversations about the Force, the ways of the Jedi, and life in general. She was the kindest and most gentle person I ever knew. I was even, well, youthfully infatuated with her. She was such a lovely young lady…" He sounded almost dreamy when he said this.

Sabine spoke the words before she was even aware of them. "Haven't you heard? She bombed the Jedi Temple! She murdered several people. And she framed her best friend for the crime."

"Sabine!" hissed Kanan, but the damage was already done.

Uli looked at the Mando Rebel with disbelief and anger in his eyes. "That's a lie!" he said. "She would never do something like that! Not Barriss! She resisted the dark side on Drongar! I was there! I witnessed her overcome that inner battle!"

"Well, she didn't later, I guess," said Sabine, "I heard that she was so disillusioned about the Clone Wars that she lost her cool and went mad. She didn't die a role model Jedi-"

"Sabine!" shouted Hera, slapping Sabine on the cheek. Sabine recoiled, and she finally realized what she had done, but too late to appease Uli.

"Uh oh," mumbled Zeb, "I can feel it coming, and I'm not even a Jedi!"

Chopper sounded like he agreed with Zeb for once.

Uli somehow knew that Sabine wasn't lying. Somewhere he had heard rumors of Barriss' actions at the Jedi Temple, but he had refused to believe any of them, believing them to be lies of then-Chancellor Palpatine. But he knew these people wouldn't lie about something like that. He quivered.

"She did!? Then I've been clinging to her memory with all my love for nothing!" Tears began to form in his eyes.

Sabine felt guilty for bringing it up, especially considering that the other _Ghost_ crewmembers were frowning at her, even Ezra. "I'm-I'm sorry, Uli," she said, "I shouldn't have said that-"

"You're karking right you shouldn't have!" shouted Uli. "Do you know what you and Barriss have both done? I've just lost my faith in the only Jedi I ever loved, because she actually did commit crimes I tried to convince myself she didn't do. And you're the one who convinced me it was the truth. To hell with your apologies!"

Uli got up and walked out of the room, probably looking for some place to be by himself. Chopper followed rapidly and gave him a shock. The droid burbled a most unsavory remark.

"This is the third wise mouth droid I've met," he said, "And he's the worst of them all! Will someone please convince him to leave me alone?!"

"Huh, easier said than done, kid," remarked Zeb. Hera glared at him.

"Oops, sorry," he said.

Uli scowled and gave Chopper a savage kick, sending him sliding across the room on his metal back. Then he left.

The others looked on quietly for a few moments.

Teela then said, "Where did your Mando warrior girl learn her manners? Reform school?"

Sabine flushed in shame, unable to look at Teela. "Maybe I should try harder to apologize to him."

"I don't think he wants your company right now, from the looks of things, Sabine," said Ezra, who had stopped frowning but still looked serious.

"Sabine," said Kanan, "I think it isn't a good idea for the two of you to associate with each other for now. I'll go and talk to him. I knew Barriss a lot better than you ever did, and maybe I can convince Uli of something about her."

"Like what?' asked Hera.

"Well," said Kanan, "Barriss' fall to the dark side wasn't caused by a lust for power or wealth, nor was it for personal or selfish reasons. She turned dark because she was sick of the terrible Clone Wars, like so many people were, and the weight of responsibility for the Jedi Order's actions proved to be too much for her. Maybe I can convince him that Barriss didn't really turn evil when she fell to the dark side, but simply lost her way on the path a little, and got there through grief and emotional suffering. That was the impression I got when I heard about her betrayal."

"It's worth a shot," said Hera.

"Yes, it is," said Kanan.

"I'll go with you," said Ezra.

"I don't believe that would be a good idea, Ezra," said Kanan.

"Maybe not," countered Ezra, "But you're going to talk to Uli about the Force and a Jedi who's been dead for a long time. I think I have to at least listen in if I'm going to understand how losing someone you love, especially a Jedi, feels to someone. I got a start when you learned of Luminara's death, but I think I need a little more education than that."

Kanan rubbed his chin. "All right, Ezra," he said, "But you'd better let me do all the talking, to begin with. I know what to say to someone like this, especially after seeing Luminara's bones."

"Agreed," said Ezra.

"Hera," said Kanan, "You stay with Sabine, Chopper, Zeb, and our other guests, and try to keep them busy. We'll be back as soon as we can."

"Got it, Kanan," said Hera.

As the Jedi and his student left, Hera asked if any of their company wanted anything to drink. Sabine asked for some water, and Zeb asked for fruit juice. But when she came around to the deserters, they all shook their heads.

"We're thirsty right now," said Memah, "But I don't know if we can drink in the company of someone who didn't think before she talked."

"I wouldn't have wanted to believe the truth about this Barriss Offee, either," remarked Teela.

Sabine swallowed a sip of water and hung her head.


End file.
